Lord (Alistair) McAlpine, former treasurer of British Conservative Party, has issued insturctions to sue the BBC and ITV over paedophile allegations. Picture: Ross Swanborough Source: The Daily Telegraph

A BRITISH peer is to to ask police to investigate Twitter users who made "malicious communications" against him.

Lord McAlpine plans to make a formal complaint today against potentially thousands who falsely named him as a paedophile – but who have failed to "repent" for their actions.

Up to 10,000 Twitter users are thought to have tweeted about the former Tory Party treasurer’s alleged – but subsequently disproved –involvement in child abuse.

It is unclear how many have now apologised and agreed to pay a nominal sum as requested to Children in Need, but two days ago just 40 had done so.

The police complaint could lead to a mass prosecution, leading to fines, or even imprisonment for up to six months, and criminal records for the large numbers who wrote about the peer online.

Comedian Alan Davies has apologised for retweeting the allegations against Lord McAlpine.

Lord McAlpine’s legal team claim that the offending tweets are criminal offences under the Malicious Communications Act 1988, or alternatively under the Communications Act 2003’s prohibition against "improper use of a public electronic communications network".

A NOTE ABOUT RELEVANT ADVERTISING: We collect information about the content (including ads) you use across this site and use it to make both advertising and content more relevant to you on our network and other sites.